bee my friend

The explosion of online social networks like MySpace and Facebook has totally blown apart and reworked the definition of the word, "friend." The interconnectedness of all beings is showing through, and I am delighted. But still, I feel a resistance every time I get an online friend request. There is a moment that I question our relationship and wonder if we really are Friends before I "accept". I awkwardly allow invitations to pile up in my Inbox, as I muse over the genuineness of our connection cuz I feel like I am just starting to learn what friendship means to me.

Friendship seems to be an invitation into the complicated dance of Self Knowing with Another. And it is only recently that I have begun to attempt these steps. Because for so long, the dance was only about getting the steps correct, making sure that I was liked or at least right. And in this definition, all invitations to be friends were accepted without regard to the disharmony or possible disservice to both parties and could easily be ended if the relationship challenged a core belief.

I am much more interested now in being like a female bee. Dancing in such a way that my sisters know where the flowers are. (You can watch Isabella Rossellini demonstrate this bee dance here). But sometimes this is going to mean dancing by myself since through my moves I am essentially encouraging them to fly away, or maybe more aptly sometimes, buzz off. The hope, of course, is that we will come back together and mix our found pollens into an even more sweet and delightfully complex honey. But the risk is that they will find another hive as it can sometimes appear like there can only be one queen.

To dance in this way is to not possess each other. Any oppression of each other's free spirit, no matter how subtle, will eventually result in a breakup. And female breakups are almost always sticky and stinging.

Sometimes I hear teachers point to the fact that because ahimsa is listed before satya in the Yamas of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, we are to be kind before truthful. I completely agree when the truth is more of an opinion and disguised harm like, "Yes, that dress does make your fat ass look even wider" or "Wow, you were totally off in that yoga class you just taught." But when we use Ravi Ravindra's definition of ahimsa as "non-violation" as oppose to the usual "non-violence" we create a spacious quality of the unknown around how we might be guided to act at any moment. The willingness to be in this unknowing is to allow ourselves to be totally vulnerable and free of the very support structures that we have worked our whole life to create.

Many female friendships are based on a socially defined network of support. "She's on my team and she'll take care of me." But what does that mean? Generally, this type of bond relies on our agreeing to a set of made up behavior that shows that we care. For example, if I don't come to your third baby shower, you can perceive that as meaning that I am not a good friend. And If I am in fear of losing your alliance and the approval of the group we are swinging with, I will suffer through what ever you want me to do at my own expense.

But this kind of alliance, that relies on a vague sense of appropriate behavior and the group's support, will be just as easily be destroyed by what props it up. When that same friendship puts you in direct opposition to the group, when being a "friend" risks your other possibly more precious attachments, alliances can shift easily.

This same dynamic tempts us to use our relationships as sources of power over others which destroys the intimate and sacred trust required for the immensely difficult work of transformation between two beings.

Lulu Bandha's has been my hive for over six years. It is here among the flowers, the honeybees and the butterflies that am learning about sisterhood. Together we have planted a garden that provides the fuel and built the hive that is the container in which we have been invited to make honey. And of course, producing honey together results in more honey which for a while can seem like the point. But as each of us becomes more skilled in sipping the sweet honey-red nectar of our own Hearts, the garden and the structure of the hive become less necessary. As we taste the ease of becoming Queen Bees of our internal domain, and not over others, the early made-up and support systems that first brought us together can dissolve. And maybe we can really start to become Friends.